General
Distillery Profile - keywords (wazzat?)Overall: Peat SmokeTea
Pepper Lemon Apple Camphor Liquorice Oysters
GrapefruitYoung
(<20yo) : Peat
Smoke ApplesTea Lemon Pepper Liquorice
Oranges Green MaritimeOld
(>20yo) : Peat Lemon
SmokeTea Sea Liquorice
Camphor Apples Oranges MedicinalMM
Distillery profile:
The Ardbeg distillery lies on the South shore of
Islay, close to the other 'Kildalton' distilleries
(Lagavulin and Laphroaig). This coast line is home
to some of the scary peat monsters that sometimes
keep me up at night... The style of the Kildalton
malts often has some more... More
on Malt Madness.

In
our opinion: Ardbeg has reached cult
status at the turn of the 2000’s thanks to
some constantly thrilling whiskies, including a
new Ardbeg Ten, and rather clever CRM (Customer
Relationship Management), using real life people
such as the distillery manager and his wife at length.
They switched from rather large vattings (how many
great old casks did the previous owners kill by
doing the crazy 30yo ‘Very Old’ at 40%?)
to single casks bottlings that were soon to appeal
to collectors and malt lovers alike. The problem
is that prices consequently surged to the point
where around 2005, no ‘regular’ malt
lover could afford an old single cask Ardbeg anymore.
Around 2006-2007, several collectors and drinkers
decided to quit collecting Ardbeg, as there’s
been a rather huge clash between the clever below
the line campaigns, that built a great 'friendship
capital' and that managed to make many aficionados
brand loyal and the new price policy that made them
feel, err, cuckolded. Furthermore, some extravagant
new products (Serendipity, Ardbeg Mor, the 1965,
the ‘gun case’) rather worked like repellents
in our opinion. It is now to be wondered if under
the new owners, Ardbeg will definitely lose its
cult status among the fanatics, who believe that
it’s themselves who decide on what’s
really premium and what’s not and not London
or Glasgow marketeers, or if it will be revived.
Well, the answer may lie in the warehouses and in
the owners' ability to show a little restraint as
far as pricing is concerned.
Now, what's also true is that out of 184 Ardbegs
we could score so far, exactly the half, that is
to say 92 versions, reached 90 points or more, which
is truly amazing.Yes we love Ardbeg. - November
4, 2007
June 28, 2009 update: a rare Ardbeg 1974 (36 bts
only) fetched 8,114 Euros on whiskyauction. The
Ardbeg mania goes on despite the recession. Other
single casks go above 1,000 Euros.What the pros had
to say:"I have been visiting
the Distillery for nearly 30 years - long before
anybody had heard of Ardbeg. And because I have
long regarded this the finest Distillery in the
world, I actually try to handicap the sample to
iron out any natural bias. " - Jim Murray,
October 12, 2007 in a Glenmorangie Company press
release.